Such like supply rolls can be used in the area of packaging technology, for example. Apparatuses are known that provide flat material and/or strip material interruption-free for wrapping and, in doing so, assembling articles with the flat material and/or strip material. The flat material and/or strip material can be formed, for example, as shrink film, with a plurality of beverage containers being wrapped with the shrink film and being assembled in bundles.
If the supply of flat material and/or strip material on a roll is exhausted, the roll has to be replaced with a further roll of new flat material and/or strip material in order to be able to continue a packaging process and preferentially perform it interruption-free.
Apparatuses for an interruption-free packing process, as well as corresponding supply rolls such as can be used in an interruption-free packing process, are known from DE 195 22 110 A1, for example. The apparatus known from the DE application provides two parallel-mounted shafts on which supply rolls are positioned. Shrink film is unwound from the supply rolls and placed around articles. The articles are subsequently passed through a shrink tunnel. When the supply of shrink film on a roll is exhausted, shrink film from a further roll is affixed to the strip supply of the first roll by heat-sealing.
If the shrink films of two rolls are to be connected by heat-sealing, a free end section of a new roll has to be extracted first and moved toward the other roll for the purpose of heat-sealing. The position of the free end section is frequently unknown so that the new roll first has to be manually rotated or, as the case may be, oriented, whereupon the free end section is moved toward the other roll in order to heat-seal the free end section to shrink film on the other roll. Carrying out this process in an automated manner can lead to problems, while manual aligning is cumbersome and involves personnel input.